Apple blew $10B on Apple Car and considered buying Tesla

Apple spent more than $10 billion on the Apple Car and even considered buying Tesla before canceling the project in early 2024.

The project, codenamed Titan, started in 2014 with the company spending more than $1 billion on research and development every year.

During development, the project faced many issues that ultimately led to its cancellation.

It was supposed to be an car with self-driving capabilities that would cost at least $100,000.

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Apple blew $10B on Apple Car and considered buying Tesla

At first, Apple considered simply acquiring Tesla in 2014 as the startup automaker was worth just under $28 billion.

However, they later decided to set up their own automotive R&D program for the Apple car.

The car was supposed to be a fully autonomous (level 5) vehicle and the plan was to bring it to market by 2020.

Designed to be a minivan, capable of driving anywhere without a human at the wheel.

However, Apple struggled with developing the software and algorithms for a car with autonomous driving.

This and many other problems led to the Apple car being delayed to 2025.

Internal issues

Internally, many Apple employees also suspected that the project was likely to fail from the beginning.

The project also had four different leads over the past 10 years.

Over these 10 years, the design of the car also changed to a curved pod with gullwing doors.

However, estimates put Apple’s cost of building the car at $120,000, which was too expensive.

Despite the Tesla deal not going through, Apple considered alternate options.

They also considered partnering with or buying other automakers, including BMW, Canoo, Ford, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen.

In the end, the company finally canceled the Apple car and decided to use what it had learned in other projects like home robots.

Some images in this article were created with AI